annalee

@annalee This mayoral election and our last presidential election have given me faith in the moderate middle ground.  I don't hang out there but I never believed that it really existed.  The conservative/liberal split is something that I find quite troubling. I posted that TED talk and a link to some interesting sociology papers detailing some of the ways conservative/liberal people think and make decisions but it drew more anger than discussion.  The thing that is most difficult for meis that the same information can be looked at and seen two different ways even when it is totally objective.  One of the key difference is hope/fear I think.  There is a book "The Culture of Fear" that discusses why we shouldn't be afraid of serial killers but the drop in real wages and the loss of civil rights.  It is very liberal and it is on my "to read" shelf.  On my conservative father-in-laws shelf is a book about how to trust your instincts to avoid violent situations called "the Gift of Fear" (it is probably a very good book).  I felt like I was in a creepy dream when I saw it as the contrast describes the split in choice to weight values differently that goes into our different decision making.  He also had a "Nothing Like it in the World" that describes the building of the trans continental railroad, but about the same time that came out another book "railroaded" was published describing how that period of history was the birth of political lobbyists as a component of the political system in this country (which is a big problem with the way our government runs). I get that I have a total willingness to accept what re-enforces my world view and reject what challenges it but I can get with a change in world view based on truth. How to speak to someone who processes information with a fundamentally different set of filters is still such a struggle.  Any insights you may have would be welcome (references to old postings is welcome as maybe you settled this all back in 2009)